


It Had To Be You

by chasing_givenchy



Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Actual implications of Gossip Dan, Backstory, Deconstruction, F/M, Post-Finale, Roman Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:23:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_givenchy/pseuds/chasing_givenchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carter and Serena, from boarding school to adulthood, professional runaways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Had To Be You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> For the lovely [aurilly](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly), who has legitimately the BEST POSSIBLE mini-manifesto on Carter and Serena, and I just died a little bit inside at the chance to write you this. I hope you like it ♥

2006

_Boarding school_

 

Fall at Knightley meant the crunch of leaves underfoot as one tramped across the sprawling school campus, and the low, throaty, secretive laughter of students hiding in the thickets, palming small white tabs of E. Serena’s bête noire was the old groundskeeper, whose special pleasure was ratting out truants to the faculty. His grey-whiskered jowls quivered with excitement whenever his beaky nose flared and smelt trouble. She hoped his nose was really clogged up by his customary JD and BO that night.

Drawing her regulation blazer over her head, she purposefully strode across the lacrosse field. The wall bounding the campus beckoned, the hole in its brickwork hidden by hedges strategically planted by the Knightley Nature Society. Serena could smell sour Parliament cigarettes even before she crawled through the escape route.

“Ugh,” she complained, more concerned with dusting herself off than the teenage boy waiting patiently for her. As she straightened her skirt, she felt Carter’s gaze slide downwards just a second too long before he flicked back up to her face. “Do you _have_ to?”

He shrugged and exhaled twin plumes of smoke. “It gets kind of dark at this time of night. Wanted to be sure that you didn’t miss me.”

Serena rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder, sending him reeling with histrionics. If he was to be believed, his genuine leather Versace motorcycle jacket would never recover from the damage. Annoyed, she moved to repeat herself, but he was whip-fast: his fingers were coiled around her wrist. His smirk just widened, and he shook his head from side-to-side in a negligently smug warning.

“You ought to be nicer to me. I have something you want.”

“Have you been shopping in the Princess Barbie section again, Carter?”

In response, he jerked his chin at something over her shoulder.

Eyes narrowed in suspicion, she glanced around, half-expecting to see his daddy’s car that he’d ‘borrowed’ so they could finally get out of Nowhereville, Suburbia, for a change. But it wasn’t a car. It stood, parked in the middle of the road that led up to the school, with studied nonchalance. Serena’s hands flew to her mouth, barely stifling her gasp.

“A _Vespa_?”

Memories of a life before Knightley crashed over her head like a tidal wave. Before the string of red Fs on class assignments, before the dial tone whenever she couldn’t punch in the last digit of Blair’s phone, before the disarray of expensive hotel sheets and the crumpled dress she’d worn to the wedding, before _Pete_ — it burst open all at once. She launched herself at Carter with such force that he buckled and staggered backwards. His cries of _whoa, easy there_ went unheard, even as he reflexively wrapped his arms around her waist to stay on his feet. His fingers were interlaced at the small of her back, his arms holding her hard and close. She could smell the smoke on his breath and the aftershave under his collar. She could see the slightest tremble of his cupid’s-bow mouth when he watched her.

Impulsively, she leaned in and kissed him. Her lips tingled with the taste of his cigarette. “How did you even know?”

“That you get moony-eyed whenever you talk about your Roman holiday?” It was Carter’s turn to roll his eyes, but his exasperation was so tender, so fond that Serena’s heart did an ungainly flop. It was easier to breathe when he untangled himself, turning away to kick the scooter to life. “Come on.”

She teasingly gave him the onceover: the irresistible black jacket, the dark-wash jeans that fit snugly around his toned thighs, the clunky motorcycle boots. No part of him belonged on the Vespa he was casually straddling—but neither did she. A woollen thread was already starting to come undone from the top of her field hockey knee sock.

Carter met her eyes like a challenge. “Get on, loser,” he said. “We’re going shopping.”

“Are we really?” she asked, wrapping a strand of her hair around her index finger. _Split end_ , she noted, not caring. She wished she didn’t care about his answer either.

He leaned back in his seat, and unfurled a slow, languid smile. “Anything for you, beautiful.”

 

It wasn’t the first time that Carter had snuck down to Connecticut to make sure that “boarding school wasn’t killing her slowly,” as he lovingly put it. Serena’s friends loved him: he occasionally drove his dad’s hand-me-down Porsche, he always had a baggie in his back pocket, and he was fresh blood for them to fall in lust with. Carter basked in the attention, at least whenever she was around to see it.

They rode into town, headed straight for the college bar that carded no one and turned a blind eye to school uniforms. Serena loved playing hooky here in the afternoons, letting young lecturers and seniors with piles of homework buy her vodka cranberries. It was loud and messy at night, the antique stereo system ready to fall apart with each thump of the dance song blasting from it.

“Foosball?” suggested Carter. The billiards table was quite definitely taken over, and darts were for people with elbow patches.

“Tequila,” answered Serena, giving him a pointed shove towards the bar. When he was gone, she sashayed over to the foosball table, accidentally-on-purpose bumping her hip against a very cute boy with a college sweatshirt and messy bangs.

“Hey,” she added, aiming the full force of her smile up at him. “I’m Savannah.”

By the time Carter showed up with their drinks and shot glasses, ‘Savannah’ was having more fun than her sequestered, blue-stocking classmates could have dreamt of. ‘Savannah’ was in the midst of a _good time_. She didn’t miss home. She was goddamn _happy_.

She didn’t even mind that Carter was standing possessively close. Nudging her drink towards her. Wearing that shit-eating grin when he flicked a glance in the new guy’s direction.

“Drink up!” he was yelling beside her. He hadn’t noticed they were meant to play foosball. “Every time he says ‘ho’ in the song—that’s the rule!”

Boy with Bangs was watching her with an appreciative gleam in his eye. The way her skirt skimmed the back of her thighs every time she moved was certainly not lost on him. It was his eyes she held as she tilted the liquor down her throat. It was at the waist of Carter’s jeans where she rested her hand so that she wouldn’t fall over. Her fingers tightened around a belt loop, hooking over the waist band, knuckles grazing the dip of his hipbone, and Carter’s voice was hoarse when he murmured into her ear: “C’mon. Let’s dance.”

Her neck tingled where she felt his hot breath. No wonder he hadn’t brought daddy’s Porsche. A large circle of people had gathered on the cleanest part of the floor, rocking out to the music. She tugged him by the belt, seamlessly inveigling the both of them into the mix. Her head was spinning even as she knocked back another tequila shot and threw herself into dancing.

Nothing good came out of that night. Nothing good ever happened whenever Carter did that thing where he surprised Serena with how sweet he could be—it made her dizzy. And when the dizziness got unbearable, literally, stomach-churningly so, he slid down beside her on the filthy bathroom floor, pushed her sweat-straggled hair from her temple, and pressed his shoulder against hers.

It was almost easy to forget why she was here, sandpapering away the loneliness of Mr. Donovan having papers to grade, Mr. Donovan flashing her a distracted smile, Mr. Donovan not noticing she had coffee for two and Fitzgerald sticking out of her bag. But there was Carter, who never said “No” or “Maybe later” or “That’s nice.” Funny how she’d be the only person to call him reliable.

“Ready to go again when you are,” he murmured in the quiet while the music thumped against the closed bathroom door, and she dry-heaved for breath.

“Give me one more minute.” He nodded, but she shoved at him, trying to send him to his feet. “I’ll be right out. One more.”

Uncertainty skittered across his face, his cupid’s-bow mouth turning downwards. “I’ll be right outside. Yell if you need—”

“Okay.”

Her head was pounding too hard for her to hear the door close. She wiped her hand on her skirt and reached for her phone. Ben was on speed dial because he didn’t think underage drinking and unicorns belonged in the same sentence. He was programmed into a lot of his student’s phones. And tonight, she called him first and climbed out the window.

 

2008

_Summer in Europe_

 

She took Carter with her to Firenze, which just showed that goodness was _not_ its own reward. “It’s not Milan; I was expecting Milan—” was his first comment when she slapped the tickets into his open hand. There was a medical conference in Tuscany, but cobblestones, paparazzi and rentable bikes in Firenze. Riding one straight through one door and out another of a hotel (apologies to the Louis Vuitton that the wheels went bumpity-bump-thump over) definitely made the headlines.

That evening, Serena commandeered his laptop and clicked every Google link to the story she could find. Carter poured brandy into their pristine Italian coffees, and clinked her cup on the bedside table. They were ensconced on the grubby top floor of a hotel that had three stars only on paper and a friendly cockroach in the corner of the floor. She batted away the unfairly delicious smell of a hot drink and some kind of escape, narrowing her eyes at the screen.

His aftershave swirled in the stuffy little room, his hand distractingly warm at the nape of her neck. “Oh, that’s clever,” he murmured even as he read over her shoulder. She ignored him and continued typing her anonymous tip to a leading Italian gossip rag about upcoming shenanigans at the Uffizi.

Getting banned for this life—and the next—from a hothouse of culture was going to be worth it.

Just as she clicked the ‘Send’ button, all the fingers of her right hand tingling like she was a live wire, Carter leaned across her and slammed the laptop lid shut.

“What—” she protested, but he cut her off with a finger against her lips. _Fuck you_ , she thought, sudden and infuriated, ready to slap him away. But it was easier to flash her teeth and nip at his skin, bask in the way his surprise morphed into a smirk. It was easier to roll sideways and into him, sending them both off the bed and crashing to the floor. She wouldn’t let him up, pinning him down firmly with her knees, and bending down until the golden curtain of her hair tickled his nose. She watched his smile widen. When she kissed him, he met her open-mouthed and hungrily, torturously pouring all of himself into the kiss.

Later, when they collapsed, giggling on the lumpy mattress, she realised that— _yes_. This was why wherever she went, he went. It was too painful to think in the spaces between the crazy stunts and the empty dial tone of her father’s phone.

“Promise me something,” said Carter as they lay loose-limbed and half-numb. She stared at the ceiling, absently enjoying the warmth of him. When he said nothing after that, she sucked in a breath and toyed with the idea of not letting go. She elbowed him as hard she could, satisfied at his pained grunt.

“So, when we’re old—”

“How old?”

“Thirty. Maybe twenty-five.”

“You think that’s old?”

He yanked at a lock of her hair, and she slapped him back. “Forget old. Whenever our parents try to marry us off, and we don’t have someone we’re wildly in love with—”

“ _Our_ parents.”

“You’re right. Sounds too much like Mother. Well, my parents, in my case. Whenever they try to sell me off to some society bride in exchange for some convoluted incentive I’ll be too weak to resist—”

“Mm. And if I’m head-over-heels in love with someone who’s bad news, and I’m the only one who doesn’t see it…”

“Then, promise me. Promise me that we’ll marry each other.”

“This sounds like a terrible plan. We have to do it.”

“Should we pinky swear?”

They did, and she said she felt like she’d just sold her soul to the devil for five bucks.

*

As the years ticked by, Carter never cashed in that chip and she came to resent him for it. Each time she wrapped up her heart and presented it to another person, she felt her stomach pool with new dread: this was it, this was when he’d come bursting in through the door.

“Is _that_ why you’re with Humphrey?” asked Blair, wrinkling her nose.

 

2017

_Wedding day_

 

“Serena, you can’t stay in there forever.”

This was highly unlikely, because she was inside the car and she had the keys. The only thing keeping her foot off the pedal was Blair standing in her way, every bit like Miss Trunchbull. Serena just slammed her palm against the horn, and Dan’s Dodge gave a painful bleat.

In retrospect, feeling bad about stealing his superfluous, easily replaceable car was the only part that twinged her conscience, and that should have been the biggest red flag of all.

“S, just come out of there, so we can talk.” Blair had her hands on her knees, and she was bending down to peer through the windshield. Her UES neighbours were being the best versions of themselves and discreetly spying on the disaster through their tightly pinched curtains. It was a testament to the strength of their friendship that Blair didn’t care. “If you don’t get your ass out in the next five minutes, I’ll—you’ll no longer be Henry’s godmother! I’m replacing you with Jenny Humphrey.”

The laugh hitched in Serena’s throat, cut off by the ring of her phone. She tossed it into the pile of missed calls she already had; there was no way she was switching it off because this was New York, not Ponyville. “B, I’m so sorry,” she yelled through the Plexiglas before twisting the key viciously in the ignition. The Dodge blared to life, and she reversed as neatly as she could before roaring down the street she’d been getting married on less than fifteen minutes ago.

Even though her poofy skirt was taking up more space than her, her wedding flowers were crushed each time her wrist bumped clumsily against the interior of the car, even though she was stealing her former fiancé’s car on his wedding day—there was no slowing down. She zipped past her parents’ penthouse, Chuck’s hotels, the Archibalds’ city home, bypassing Grand Central. If anyone dredged up Gossip Girl’s—her former fiancé’s—Spotted map, all those places would be invisible under a bobble-headed graphic of her.

In a moment of dizzying insanity, she wondered if she could show up on Georgina’s doorstep.

The Dodge was the smallest, grubbiest, least glamorous speck in the airfield when Serena pulled up by the hangar. Her dress was giving it some stiff competition when she clambered out of the car. A hand caught hers almost at once, a voice murmuring, “Leave the keys,” with practiced comfort and assurance.

Gratitude welled in her throat as she hurried towards the private plane, _Spectator_ emblazoned on its side. After all, Nate was the one who would— _had_ —sucker-punch someone to defend her. “I thought you—”

“I don’t particularly care what Humphrey does, while my best friend or my stepsister is besotted with him. Since neither of them are at the moment…”

She was smiling as she accepted her passport, not even asking how he’d ferreted it out. Her heels clanged up the stairs and she disappeared into the cabin. There was a stewardess standing at attention, carrying a tray and a flute of champagne, and magazines lay fanned and ready. Someone had thoughtfully included _Vogue_ among the mish-mash of _TIME_ and _National Geographic_.

“Blair will send your luggage on ahead.”

Alarm jack-knifed her in a second. “No—don’t—I don’t want him to know where—”

Chuck, the master of paranoia and subterfuge, understood why you should be afraid of even baggage tags when travelling under the radar. He didn’t judge either. That was why he hefted a small DKNY bag out of his coat and tossed it to her. She unzipped it, eyes widening to realise it had shampoo and a Venus razor.

Despite the wreckage of her wedding day, she didn’t stop smiling until the wheels touched the tarmac again.

 

She went back to Italy because her friends’ hopes and dreams seemed to be pinned there. Not Blair—she’d always have Paris. Not Chuck, whose business interests and exploits littered the globe, but who kept running to Monaco when the odds were against him. But Eric had slopped gelato down his shirtfront in Naples and nearly been smothered by pigeons. Lily had met Klaus when he overpaid for a vaporetto just so he could motor through the canals to find the “snow queen who captured his heart.” Giuseppe had taken Serena to the arbour where Juliet had pined for Romeo and completely desecrated the memory of pre-teen Shakespearean lovers. This was where Carter had burned with possessive fervour and made that pact to marry her; this was where Georgina had pined for a future of destruction, and Dan had dutifully hammered away at it, one typewriter key at a time.

A runaway bride and a professional failure. The apple had certainly fallen far from the tree. Was modelling an option for her? She knew Blair would put her in every show, and wouldn’t even call it charity, but that was the last thing she wanted. There were other designers, magazines, so many avenues, but they all seemed so inadequate against the memory of her cotillion speech. She’d laboured over that one, so naturally, Grandma had made Mom rewrite it, and Carter had grabbed a Sharpie and rewritten _that_ without needing to be asked. She’d gone home in Dan’s arms, but she’d saved the card.

Now, she followed her tourist map of Firenze to where their shabby three-star hotel had once been. The flower shop and souvenir store on either side had transformed into a grocery and a souvenir store, but the hotel looked as scruffy and quaint as always. She wistfully brushed her hand against the wall where the ancient paint job was starting to expose the brick, and pushed open the door.

Very little about the interior had changed: the receptionist’s wood-panelled area, each cubbyhole for the keys painted a different bright colour; the steep flight of four staircases and no elevator; the pistachio-coloured wallpaper that belied the exquisitely careful ceiling frescoes in each of the rooms. The receptionist’s smile flashed like a beacon and good omens for whatever Italy had to give her.

“What about luggage?” The receptionist looked around as if several bags were piled under the counter or on the steps outside.

“Oh! I didn’t bring any.” Serena had found a black platinum AmEx card—issued only to the select, which definitely included the former Lily van der Bass—stuffed amid tiny bottles of seaweed scrub and exfoliating bath foam. She had swiped it at the first hypermarket she found and walked out in denims and feeling like a women scorned because of her Avenged Sevenfold T-shirt. The wedding dress had flown back to New York, lovingly folded in a garment bag (she was slightly insulted that Chuck had thought to pack _that_ beforehand) and with a note addressed to “dear everyone.” Thumbing her belt loops, she smiled sheepishly back at the receptionist and shrugged.

Not that it dimmed the spark of suspicion that flared in the other woman’s eye, or lessened the new beady scrutiny of the register Serena had just signed.

“Here’s… your key. Third floor room. You want someone to take you there?”

“That’s not really necessary—”

“I fetch someone to take you there. Carlo!” she bellowed with window-rattling energy.

There was a rattle and a crash, and a tall guy, about Serena’s age, slinked into the room. His pink button-down was tucked neatly into his dark-wash jeans, and his hair was artfully tousled. His bare feet slapped the floor, his eyebrows rising in confusion to see the lack of luggage. The blood was just starting to return to Serena’s face as she forcibly reminded herself that she didn’t have to think like a Bass, the world wasn’t out to get her. _Carlo_ sounded miles away from _Carter_ , and she wasn’t looking at him anyway.

The receptionist barked orders in Italian, and Carlo put up a spirited fight. Under cover of the noise, Serena clutched her keys tight and slipped up the stairs. All the air freshener couldn’t bury the lemony scent of newly-applied cleaning supplies, so she couldn’t even expect cockroaches this time. _A fresh start is exactly what I need_ , she thought, and not for the first time either.

As she was about to slot the key into her new door, she heard the creak of hinges behind her. She held her breath despite herself; _this is Blair’s fault_ , _this is the fault of the universe_ , she’d been programmed to expect cute, distracting boys around every corner, especially when one outran one’s troubles in Manhattan. _Thank you, universe_.

“Hey, beautiful. You look like you missed me.”

 

Tea steamed in the bird-patterned cups, while Serena crossed her arms and glared at the man on the other side of her kitchen. Carter leaned back against the counter, practically lounging with an insolence that made her want to growl and storm right back out of that room.

“What are you even doing here?”

“C’mon, Serena, it’s your wedding day. The least I could do was congratulate you in person.”

“Thanks, but I don’t remember inviting you.”

“Aw. Did you give all your exes the boot, or am I just special?”

“Don’t worry, you’d have been bored anyway. The only people there were my best friends, and none of them can stand you.”

“Really? I thought Chuck was warming up to me. He _is_ my lifelong travel agent.”

The words kicked Serena right in the ribs, and she nearly heard one crack. _He wouldn’t_ , she tried to protest, but deep down, she knew that wasn’t true. ‘For her own good’. Because he was her brother. Because he loved her and wouldn’t just be her enabler. She ought to be grateful she was staring into the dark blue eyes of her bad habit, and not Rufus Humphrey, Therapist Dad of the Year.

“And you just took it?”

Carter said, a little irritably: “I can pay my own airfare. I’m not _destitute_.”

“Who cares about your family problems, Carter? I meant that you’re now so desperate that someone just has to say my name, and you’ll stalk me across the globe.”

She wanted the words to hurt, to bruise that peaches-and-cream-complexioned cheek, to leave ugly yellowing patterns of where her knuckles had hit the mark. Instead, his lips twisted upwards, cat-like, the way he always smiled around a physical blow in a fight he was about to win. And when the other person didn’t know it.

“All I did was ask myself why _Chuck Bass_ was coming to me. Not to Blair. Not to your fiancé. Hell, not even to Archibald. He came to _me_ , Serena, because you were in trouble and I _know_ you. I know you always run. All I’m asking is let me go with you.” Earnestness blazed in his eyes, the kind of look that made her want to crush herself against him and lose herself in his kiss. “You don’t have to do this alone, Serena. I’m always going to be here when you need me.”

 _You’re not my bad habit, Carter_. She didn’t care. He was here, bursting with longing, and she used him for all he could give.

 

The sun trying to stream into the apartment through the huge bay windows were blocked off by the heavy bedroom curtains. It was starting to get stifling under the sheets. She toyed with a pack of Parliaments on the bedside table, wondering if picking up the pocket-sized _Sorrows of Young Werther_ was worth it. It was Dan’s, of course, and she’d agreed to read it, at first, because he identified so passionately with the titular character. Now, she couldn’t wait for the part where the love of young Werther’s life married someone else and he blew his own brains out. Finally, she grabbed her phone and slid out of the bed. Padding into the attached bathroom, she toed the door closed and dialled.

Blair wouldn’t mind the long-distance billing.

“ _Serena!_ ” she squealed before either of them could say hello. The undisguised delight and affection in her voice was the nicest homecoming Serena had heard so far. “Where the hell are you? Chuck’s being very secretive. Not to mention resistant to all my attempts to torture it out of him. I told him I’d put his iPhone in the goldfish bowl, and he just said he’d take my Manolos hostage.”

Leaning back against the slightly grubby porcelain sink, Serena closed her eyes and let the comforting familiarity of Blair venting about the nerve of that man waft over her. “B,” she deigned to interrupt after the longest time, “I’m in Florence.” If she left out the part about who she was in Florence with, it was only out of concern for her best friend’s blood pressure.

“How’s Dan?”

Blair rolled her eyes almost audibly. “How do you think? _Not_ that I’m judging, having been a former runaway bride myself. Of course, I had the decency to ditch my scumbag husband _after_ the ceremony was over.”

“Aw, B, that’s awful. Does Chuck know? Because he’s still living in your house.”

“I’m surprised you can make jokes. It was a pretty dramatic exit—are you okay?”

A heavy voice could be heard murmuring on the other line: “Blair. I’m sure she’d be more ‘okay’ if you gave her a little space.”

“Ignore him. He has the emotional intelligence of a shoe rack. How _are_ you? I didn’t know you were that unhappy.”

A rush of feeling flooded through Serena, blurring her vision and making her heart pound. Not even Carter had asked her that. He’d known, the way he always did, when she was unhappy, but he was always tripping over himself to reassure her of his support. He never wanted to talk about it because he knew she didn’t want to talk about it. Because if she did, there would be too many excuses and too much of “maybe,” as if trying to see the best in people would fix their flaws.

“I just—B, I kept waiting for the axe to fall. The phone to start pinging. A _ha fooled you all_ blast. Because I was getting married, and Gossip Girl loves nothing more than to tear me down. And when I found out it was Georgina, even for a little while—”

“Ugh. Sparks, the she-devil.”

“It made so much sense, B. No one else could have been that vindictive, that _spiteful_. And to find out it was Dan… I kept thinking about that story he wrote about the birthday party, and it seemed… I thought he loved me. He’d do anything to get me to notice him, to prove that he was worth me, and _of course_ he played the same games that we did because that’s exactly what our world is like. He was fitting in, and who was I—any of us—to pretend otherwise? It wasn’t a good thing, but we could change. Together. And despite everything, he loved me. That wasn’t a lie.”

Blair had gone all kinds of quiet, and Serena wondered if she was holding up those words and trying to compare them to her own relationship with Chuck.

“While I was standing there, waiting, just _expecting_ our phones to ring… I realised that I was afraid. Of that axe to fall. Of Gossip Girl. The man I loved. That I’d always been afraid of Dan without realising it.”

There was a suspiciously muffled sound, and she recognised it at once as Blair’s victory shriek. Distantly, she felt angry that this was the first time she was hearing about it. But it didn’t make it less true. Maybe she even felt better for it.

“Serena, _all_ that matters is that you’re not doing anything you want to do. Sure, divorce is as easy as one-two-three when your evil ex-father-in-law is the reason the Brooklyn Boogieman even has a place to live, and Chuck has years of practice forging Bart’s signature on Co-Op Board approval revocation forms. That’s not important. The _key_ thing is that you never had _Humphrey_ in your name, just like Lauren Bacall. I mean, Serena Humphrey?”

“Blair Bass isn’t a picnic either.”

“Which is why I kept my name,” said Blair primly. “You don’t want to be Serena van der Woodsen Humphrey. His surname would get an inferiority complex. Like owner, like name, I suppose.”

Despite herself, she was laughing now. She let herself get caught up in the Blair-ness of it all, and before she hung up, she quickly added that she wanted to talk to Chuck.

“It’s for you. If you make her cry, I _will_ find out and I will make _you_ cry.”

There was a trace of resentment in Chuck’s rumbling greeting. “I suppose you heard that.”

She giggled. “I just wanted to ask: what were you _thinking_?”

“I have no idea what you’re referring to. Some of us are flooded with too many thoughts to keep track of the individual ones.”

“Carter. You wouldn’t tell Blair, but you’d tell _Carter_?”

“I assure you, dear sister, that since I’m married to Blair, she has priority over Baizen in _all_ things. Least of all information.”

 

In her hurry, Serena had grabbed Carter’s trousers, but without a belt, they kept sliding down her hips. She crammed the tail of his shirt into the waist of her store-bought jeans, stuffed her passport and credit card into the back pockets, and slipped out the door. The light patter of his snores made her realise she needn’t have carried her shoes in hand.

Only when she was outside did she let the full implications of the situation buffet her. The cobblestones were hot from the sun under her feet, and she wished for New York taxis that would come to screeching halts before single pretty girls.

She checked flight timings on her phone, figuring she could hitch a ride from the heart of the town. _I know you always run_. Bitterly, she wondered what else she was good at. Even Carter hadn’t asked her to stop and stay.

It was a long walk, but she kept to the shaded alleyways winding between and behind buildings. Her oversized sunglasses and mismatched clothing meant she could have been an unfashionable tourist or an incognito B-list movie star. She hopped into a bank to withdraw a useable wad of cash, and plucked a railway leaflet from a souvenir shop. She could be in Rome by nightfall if she wanted to. She was sure that airports would be the first place anyone would check.

Finally, she slumped under the colourful sun umbrella of a gelateria, and ordered two scoops of the kookiest flavour. She might as well have been in the Hamptons, guarding Nate’s ice cream and hers while he chatted up suntanned girls, not noticing his best friend digging her spoon into his bowl. She could be in Connecticut, and hearing footsteps clatter up the fire escape outside her window. Carter never snuck into Knightley without a bag of wasabi peas, trail mix or macadamia nuts in his pockets. Something they could toss into the air and catch with their mouths, quickly making a game out of it. It was lovely up on the roof of the school after midnight, the glow of rule-breaking and the unbridled _fun_ of being with him.

It was with some regret that she decided it was time to go. Leaning over the vitrine containing an array of delicious gelato, she waved her souvenir railway map at the swiper. “Which way to train?” she asked in her best Italian.

He flashed her a wide grin, and took the map from her as slowly as possible, his hand not-so-accidentally brushing against hers. Ignoring his other customers, he quickly sketched directions. “Taxis are very expensive,” he told her. “Don’t bother with them. You can walk, of course, _but_...” He jerked his head at a faded poster taped to the back of the shop, half-hidden under new, glossier announcements about their newest flavours. “How about riding to there in style?”

“Oh my gosh! You rent Vespas?”

The guy shrugged modestly. “All you have to do is leave at our place in the station.” He circled a spot on the map. “You can be like Audrey Hepburn in that movie. Have fun.”

She didn’t bother protesting that the irrevocable dibs had already been called on that role. She somehow doubted that a complete stranger would understand the intricacies of Blair’s nightmares. Instead, she gladly filled out the surprisingly detailed paperwork and slapped down the cash, and puttered away on her bright orange scooter.

As sandstone buildings and churches zipped past her, she soon became aware of heads continually turning to stare at her. Maybe her outfit was a _bit_ lopsided, but surely Italians had seen a worse grade of tourists. Besides, the Uffizi Incident had occurred nearly a decade ago. When this town was so close to the wine-growing regions of Tuscany, there was no way that the locals had long memories. There _was_ that steady clicking staccato that had been following her for miles, but she’d chalked it up to something mechanical…

Steering around the corner, she snuck a glance over her shoulder, nearly balking at the sight. A too-small and very frayed T-shirt clinging to his chest, pants hanging off his hips, hair sticking up wildly, cheeks pink—Carter was running at full tilt after her. “Serena!” he yelled, voice hoarse. “Serena, wait!”

There was only one thing to do: speed up, except the Vespa seemed incapable of going any faster. “Go away,” she yelled back. This was too much like the day she’d gone apartment-hunting with Dan: did she have a quality that attracted lying, stalking scumbags who went occasionally barefoot and knew how to exploit her weakness for a Vespa? “I want nothing to do with you—I thought I made that pretty clear.”

“How is _sleeping with me_ making that clear?”

A man with a fanny pack clamped his hands around his daughter’s ears and glared at Serena. She rolled her eyes at him, as if to say _nice message you’re sending her, dude_. “Let me think. How about the part where I left?”

“You’re wearing my _clothes_!” By now, Carter was almost catching up to her, but if the gas tank didn’t get her all the way to the train station, there would be serious hell. “You’re wearing my clothes,” he added. “That’s the sexiest thing a girl could do.”

“ _Seriously_?”

He began to backtrack at once. “Aside from the thing—with the—”

“Shut up, Carter! Shut up and leave me alone!”

His palm balanced against the handlebars of the Vespa, and he was tripping in trying to keep pace with her. “Serena—Serena, stop—you don’t have to do this—we can talk about it. You don’t have to run.”

In a sudden start of fury, she slammed to a stop. Carter stumbled over a cobblestone, barely managing to catch himself mid-fall. “Tell me exactly why I don’t _have_ to run from you, Baizen. Because—”

“Because you need me.” He cut her off before she could finish, his chest heaving wildly for breath. “You need me, Serena, because whatever’s going on in your life, it always seems less messed up compared to me. You want me around because that way you’ll be sure that no matter what, someone will always be chasing after you when you run. Because no one will hold your hand during all the bad decisions you won’t tell even your best friends about. Because you know that I love you and there’s nothing you can do to me that’ll make me say ‘no’. Not to you.”

His palm had settled like a heavy, desperately comforting weight over the back of her hand as he said all of that. It made the blazing sincerity of his words that much harder to stomach. Tears stung her eyes as she shoved him off her. “Nice speech, Carter, but it would mean a lot more if it didn’t come from a first-class _creep_.”

This time, when she kicked the Vespa into gear, he didn’t follow. Relief tried to claw its way up her throat, but the cottony sensation of loneliness and grief wouldn’t let it.

 

Despite everything, she found herself at the station forty minutes before the train would arrive. Out of all her rapidly piling regrets, foremost was that she hadn’t thought to bring _InStyle_ with her from the plane. She positioned herself on a wide, curving painted bench, ready to jump aboard the second the train pulled in and the doors opened. Alone with herself and head pounding with the world’s worst run-in, she let her shoulders slump and legs dangle, as if she could force the tension out of her body.

Finally, she reached into the breast pocket of the shirt for the piece of paper tucked away. Carter’s dry-cleaning bill had been bothering her for hours. It had a sharp edge, a staple or something, and it had been poking her in all the wrong places. It was stationery all right, but cream-coloured, tasteful card paper. He was certainly too poor to afford a dry-cleaner like that. Flipping it over, she stared at the scribble on the back:

Baizen— Florence. Tickets to follow.

There was no signature. The handwriting, achingly familiar to her, would be unremarkable to Carter. No wonder he thought Chuck had sent it, Chuck who was almost too good at smuggling people out of the country. He had meant it, she realised, thinking back to the kitchen in the apartment. He’d meant every word. Every time.

Her fingers trembled around the card. _You’ll always be looking for an excuse to bolt_. And once again, she’d found it. She wished there was some way to hurl it into the Adriatic Sea.

This time she was brimming with wild plans to track down a real motorcycle and call in a bomb threat at the airport if she had to, because jeopardising international security and getting arrested were life were small fry in the grand scheme of romance. The card was clutched tight in her hand even though she felt the trembles rack from her spine to her tingling toes.

It was getting late, the sky turning a darker orange and the wind chill rising, when she stepped out of the station. People fanned around in a wild sea, and for a second, she worried about getting back to the apartment. What if Carter had paid the bill? What if she was stranded and homeless? What if he didn’t go back to New York and even Andrew Tyler couldn’t find him? Time had slowed down for an excruciatingly long minute, the world moving like molasses around her.

Turning over a phone in his hands and looking every inch a lost boy, was Carter. His hair still stood up in sweaty spikes and the band T-shirt looked more ripped than the designer had probably intended. He seemed rooted to the spot and a thousand miles away. Serena broke into a run, despite herself, despite every good intention inside her. She was poised to fling her arms around Carter, but even before she could, he sensed her presence, whirling around. They collided suddenly into each other, his eyes widening in unguarded surprise, like he couldn’t believe this was real.

“Serena, what—”

Breathlessly, she cut him off, her words tumbling out: “You’re an idiot and Chuck will _always_ hate you.”

“And you?” he asked, looking almost fearful. “Do you—”

“I always have, I never stopped.” And she sealed the promise with a kiss.


End file.
